They develop with AI the most complete map of the human brain

A study with the participation of the University of Girona (UdG) has developed the map thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). “more complete and detailed” of the human brain to date, which can visualize the human brain in vivo from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with high precision.

The atlas, named NextBrain and published in the magazine Naturerepresents “a key step forward” for understand and diagnose neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, the UdG reports in a statement this Thursday.

Study the subregions

Existing maps can identify the main structures of brain regions on MRI scans, but in the finer subregions they remain “difficult to detect.” These distinctions “are important,” since the subregions of the hippocampus, among others, are affected significantly. different way during the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Examining the brain at a cellular level is possible through microscopy – histology – but it cannot be done in living individuals, which “limits your potential” to understand how the human brain changes during development, aging and disease.

With this work, it will be possible to analyze MR images of living patients with a level of detail “until now unattainable,” allowing the detection of anatomical subregions that until now were invisible in a matter of minutes.

6 years of work

NextBrain is the result of 6 years of work with brain tissue samples post mortem of 5 human brainseach of which was dissected into more than 10,000 microscopic sections, stained, photographed and digitally reconstructed to create a 3D model.

AI allowed these images to be aligned with previous MRI scans, correcting distortions and other artifacts from the dissection ensuring an “accurate” reconstruction.

From this process, the researchers identified and labeled 333 brain regions, a job that without AI “it would have taken decades”; The result is a probabilistic atlas representative of adult brain structure, applicable to both living brains and samples. post mortem.

Open tool

The atlas, validated with thousands of MRI scans of people of different ages and conditions, has demonstrated its ability to automatically identify brain regionsincluding the smallest ones, with a precision “similar to that of manual annotation made by experts.”

All data and tools NextBrain have been published openly through the FreeSurfer neuroimaging platform to facilitate their use by the international scientific community.